Loop da Friggin Loop
by legendarytobes
Summary: 1.11 "St. Lucifer" and after Miranda 2.04 "A New Low" - Malcolm Graham shoots Gary, and Lucifer has to break Lux's chef out of his hell loop.


**Loop Da Friggin' Loop**

"What like you've done everything perfectly in your life, have you?" He was screaming at Miranda, and that…wait, hadn't that happened four months ago. Gary stilled even as Miranda slammed her door and he snuck back behind it to avoid being locked out of the flat. "Wait…I wasn't here before."

Miranda was glaring at him, and his heart ached. It felt like he hadn't seen her in ages. Well, four months, which wasn't really much longer than he'd been in Hong Kong, but it _felt_ longer. When he was traveling in Asia, even if the post cards didn't get to England reliably-or at all, it turned out-he could always just contact Miranda somehow, at least try. She'd be open toward receiving anything he posted. But this had been different. They'd fought, she'd basically told him to go to Hell, and he'd left.

So, what the bloody hell was he doing back in her flat, fighting out all over Tamara again?

"Argh, we can't even do arguing properly. You need to leave."

"But I just…I need you to understand it's not what you think!" He threw his hands up in the air above his head, as if that would explain anything.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Explain it then-you went to Hong Kong, which is fine, we weren't dating, but then you sleep with someone, get married to her for whatever reasons you claim, and then you just don't tell me and watch me race Stevie into trying to be best mates with her. Was it all some joke? Were you having a go at me?"

He tried to step toward her but Miranda raised her arms, and shook her head as he tried to inch toward her. Gary stilled but tried again. "I owed her."

"Why?"

He scrubbed a hand over his scruff and sighed. "You wouldn't like it if I told you."

She gritted her teeth before speaking, and he was surprised, considering Miranda's propriety and hang-ups around intercourse, that she actually said the next bit loudly. "So, you wouldn't like telling me all about the sex you had?"

Gary sighed. It was three times, and then they'd palled around Hong Kong and the restaurant they'd both been at. Tamara had moved on through a few blokes after him, and if he hadn't needed bail money and if her parents hadn't had the right connections, he'd never had said yes the green card shenanigans.

"You'd think less of me."

She shook her head and opened the door. "I couldn't possibly think less of you now, Gary. Get out."

This time, when she slammed the door on him, it hurt like crazy. His left shoulder caught the brunt of the impact, and, as he yipped, he felt like he'd be bruised in the morning. Shaking his head, and still not sure when he'd gotten back to Surrey from L.A., Gary walked down the steps from Miranda's flat and directly into the restaurant.

He blinked. No that couldn't be right. He was supposed to walk through her joke shop first, since she lived above it. But he was in the restaurant and now standing at the counter nodding in muted confusion as the plumber was explaining whatever gobbledygook applied to the burst pipes. Like it was some bloody miracle a guy he could barely understand with a thick Cockney accent knew which way to turn a screw. Or wait, was it a wrench?

Miranda stormed back into the restaurant and Gary blinked back his vertigo again. She wasn't wearing the purple and blue dress from literally five minutes ago. It was a green shirt with a bit of a ruffle at the bottom, and she'd worn that out at the park a week ago, hadn't she? But he'd been in L.A. till now or maybe that was a dream? But she'd definitely been arguing with him at her flat not five minutes ago and had changed and rushed here in record time.

"What?"

She didn't do more than glare at him, and Gary sussed out from her gaze that she was still mad at him. Instead, she turned to the plumber as he came around the bar and started snogging him. Gary's eyes widened. Miranda was hardly the bold type-he'd gathered over the years although she blustered around it that she didn't have a lot of experience with sex-but she was practically climbing the workman like he was a tree. One of her long legs was wrapped around his waist and her hands were threading through his hair.

Gary coughed. "Excuse me, we're open for business here!"

She pulled away and shucked off her shirt, which, okay _that_ felt like Miranda as she seemed to have more wardrobe malfunctions than anyone he'd ever met. The arsehole had his hands roaming up and down her stomach and the black lace of her bra.

"Don't care!"

Gary stormed around the bar and yanked at the workman's arm. It was like trying to reroute the Thames and, okay, maybe he should at least think about taking working out more seriously. He knew he wasn't exactly the manliest bloke, but a little effect on the plumber would have been nice.

"Oy, get off her."

The plumber shrugged and stepped away from Miranda. "Sorry, luv, this will just take a mo. Know what I mean?"

Gary pulled his arm back to slug the other guy, who had clearly outstayed his welcome, when the other man slugged him quickly. It was a deft, sharp blast to his jaw that left Gary blinking back stars. Even as his vision blurred and darkness swept over him, the last thing he could clearly make out was Miranda laughing cruelly and harping on him for being anything _but_ an alpha male.

He woke again, his head pounding, and he figured a concussion was in his cards. Great, complimented his throbbing left shoulder perfectly. Blinking, he tried to figure out what was going on. Everything felt somewhat similar but not right. He'd already fought with Miranda. He'd never had fisticuffs with the plumber, and he was positive he'd been in L.A. in that crazy theme bar for months. Hadn't he? So when did he get back to Surrey? When did he…get back to the park?

"The hell?"

He blinked again and tried to stand. Nausea roiled through him, and he was sure that he had a concussion then. Darkness was settling over the park, and the last bits of sunset spread indigo and rose hues over the water. Then, came an ominous honk and Gary gulped. He turned to find over a dozen geese calling to him. They seemed like the biggest ones he'd ever seen, more like the size of a damn pack of Great Danes. Their eyes blazed a bright, feral yellow and what the fuck? When the leader squawked again, long fangs-and seriously what was going on here-glinted in the last vestiges of sunlight.

Gary turned quickly and started running, hoping to find a tree or something to crime before these demon geese-because the regular version weren't crap enough-rushed after him. He made it a few feet before he tripped over a vine in the rapidly growing dark. He thunked hard onto his stomach, and groaned as all the air was forced from his lungs. Rolling over, he reached for any branch or weapon he could find to wave around…to do _anything_ before the freaking monster geese ate him.

That was when a snap of fingers rung out behind him and the geese froze. It was like someone had pressed pause on a video game. They were just still.

"Seriously, what the hell is going on?"

He didn't expect an answer, but the voice rumbling behind him, while deep and ominous in a way that bit into his bones and his deepest nerves, was still familiar. When he looked back over his shoulder, however, only the ridiculously expensive tuxedo the interloper wore was also familiar. The red, scarred and burned face, and the eyes that burned red as embers certainly were not. If he weren't already terrified of scooting back into demon geese, Gary would have tried to crabwalk back.

But he was sore, concussed, confused as fuck, and had reached his max limit for trousers-messing terror. Instead, he gulped in air hungrily and frowned at the figure hovering over him. "I…boss?"

Lucifer Morningstar, who apparently was now guesting in spectacular fashion in Gary's nightmares, let out a low, appreciative whistle. "Remind me when we get out of all this to give you more credit, Preston. I figured I'd have to explain things a bit more." He shrugged as if this weren't both bizarre and Lovecraftian levels of horrifying all at once. "I do try to keep the normal glamour up topside, but it's harder when I'm home. Don't get as sodding hot and burned this way-nothing left to burn really-and I loathe ash in my hair. Right inconvenient to get back out."

Gary worked his jaw and tried to remember words. "I am having the weirdest nightmare in the history of nightmares, aren't I?"

Lucifer shrugged and played a bit with the ring on his finger, twisting it back and forth. "Similar mechanism, a bit more permanent under usual circumstances. Long story short: I'm exactly who I said I was, you got shot because Maze's theory on decoys at Lux was actually surprisingly useful but not at all what I'd have wanted, and I'm here using up my _only_ Pentecostal coin, I might add, to save your arse."

The words were clear and rang out with Lucifer's posh, though slightly muddled accent, and they settled deep in his bones, an otherworldly quality underlining them. But they didn't make sense. Because if this wasn't a dream…

Gary shuddered, started shaking so hard he didn't think he'd ever stop. "You're Satan?"

"Well, I prefer the name I go by currently," Lucifer huffed as if that were the only thing that had gone pearshaped. "But Old Scratch, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness…etc., you get it. Now, you, Preston, happen to have a friend in very low places. If you'd rather stay here, you're welcome to, but if you'd be ever so kind to stand up and take my hand-no it won't burn or hurt you before you ask-and I'll just whisk us both up topside. It would be beyond a shame to waste my token on a git too dazed to take his second shot at life gratefully."

"You're the devil."

Lucifer sighed and ran a palm over his face, which was somehow even more distracting considering there was nothing but marred, hairless skin to stroke. "Told you that since day one, haven't I? I'm the devil, this is your hell loop, and it's like that closing time song, yeah? You don't have to go home, but you really can't stay here. So, Preston, move your arse and let's go." 

The words were more or less polite but the roar underneath them was terrifying, jarred deeply into his spine, and left him unable to swallow. The tiny, animal instincts part of his brain gibbered back at him to move in double time and do everything-and anything-that Lucifer demanded. It would not go well if he didn't. Gary hopped to his feet and groaned as his world spun. Inching to his boss, who again was somehow Satan and what had he even gotten himself into, Gary stilled before taking the other man's (term used loosely) hand.

"Tick-tock. Going to stay with the demon geese instead, are we?"

Gary looked over his shoulder. He wasn't sure which was a better choice, sticking with the monstrous birds or taking his chance with the Lord of Hell. Considering that option A were _geese_, he opted for anything else. Taking Lucifer's scarred, dry hand, he nodded. "This better be a nightmare."

Lucifer clenched his jaw before replying and even as his free hand retrieved a small, silver coin from his pocket. "It's not, but welcome back to the land of the living."

Gary woke in the worst pain of his life. His entire gut felt on fire. Blinking up, he tried not to gag around the breathing tube down his throat. Machines beeped furiously around him and nurses and people in long, white lab coats barked orders around him. It took a while, and long after the tube was removed, and the tests of his neurological abilities rendered. The doctor explained about the shooting and the trauma to his abdomen from a single bullet that luckily missed most of the important internal organs. His spleen was gone, but it could have been infinitely worse. After Dr. Phillips when through her plans for Gary's hospitalization and explained which milestones he had to hit to be released, she promised she'd return at her next set of rounds and that soon the hospitalist would be in with him to get his insurance information.

He leaned back against the pillows and cursed under his breath when he was alone in the ICU. Of course, stupid, sodding America. He didn't exactly have much dosh in his life savings. He certainly didn't have any access to insurance as someone living less than legally in the U.S. He was going to get deported so fast and have tens of thousands of pounds in bills on top of it.

"Brilliant, Gary, just brilliant."

"Words not often ascribed to you," Lucifer said, smirking back at him as the other man entered the room.

Gary stilled and forced himself to keep breathing. What he'd seen couldn't have been true, could it? He'd been shot at some robbery at Lux before the gala had even had a chance to happen. He'd spent a day in a coma. Clearly, his mind and his guilt over Miranda and all the oddness of Lux had swirled together to create what had happened. It couldn't have been real.

He was not talking to the devil.

Was not.

Lucifer sat down with grace in the one other chair in the room, crossing his legs primly over one another. Then, he straightened the lapel of his plum suit and shrugged. "Do you want to ask me questions or would you prefer I go first?"

"The doctors said I was shot." Gary was surprised he could speak at all. Then again, his whole world had gone mental, and he needed answers more than he needed to curl under the covers and forget about Satan or the demon geese that had almost devoured him.

"That you were. I apologize profusely for that." Lucifer chuckled. "Not something I do often."

"I've noticed."

"But the man who shot you, a rogue cop now AWOL named Malcolm Graham, was looking for me. Since we both…"

"…look alike," Gary finished.

"And you were already in one of my old tuxes for the gala. He didn't think to question his luck. You shouldn't have gotten in the middle of it, certainly not like that, and I honestly owe you not only for what you've suffered but because now I know someone is hunting me, which I was unaware of before."

"Because you're the devil?"

Lucifer shrugged. "I've no idea yet, but it's possible, and you remember that bit too, huh?"

Gary rubbed his brow with his free hand, the one not tethered by lines. "It seems mad, stark raving, but I _saw_ it." He frowned, not sure if Lucifer's red-skinned look would be better to see now or not. There was something even more uncanny and disturbing starting at a doppleganger for this conversation than just Satan himself, and Gary wasn't even sure what to think about that.

His boss looked down at his lap and didn't quite meet Gary's eyes after that. "I am that devil. Told you. I bloody well tell everyone. I can't exactly be faulted because humans don't listen."

Gary tried to remember how to breathe. It was surprisingly hard with the literal Devil staring back at him or, well, more at his own lap but same difference. "Am I going back to Hell?"

"Depends on you. Hell is based on guilt. If you never feel better about your situation with that bird of yours, never apologize to Miranda, then I'd wage you've enough guilt to send you back down in a dozen years or fifty from now. I'd work on that."

"You don't decide."

"Dearie me no. Of course not."

"But you're Satan."

He shrugged and finally met Gary's gaze. "It's automated. I didn't set the rules. I didn't set the parameters. Humans choose by their behavior and what they _feel_ deep down they deserve. If you want to think of it broadly, I'm usually an inmate too. It's not like I just love to mete out punishment."

"You're in L.A. with a nightclub and solving crimes?" Gary was pretty sure this last sentence and how stupid Lucifer's life in Los Angeles sounded were the breaking point for him. That was where he'd officially gone round the freaking pipe.

Lucifer set his hands on his knees. "I did not anticipate channeling my inner Poirot, no, but the Detective is rather intriguing so it happened in the process of my holiday. I found a bit of a loophole, and while usually my brother Amenadiel would have found a way to send me home by now, I have an open ticket."

"Oh." Then Gary blinked, processing the rest of what his boss had said. "Wait, does Chloe know?"

Lucifer bristled at that. "I've told all the humans I work with what I am. If they choose not to believe it, then that can't be helped."

"I don't exactly believe that. And Ms. Smith is…oh God."

"Hardly. Mazikeen is my demon bodyguard and oldest acquaintance. She's no harm to you. I don't think she likes you perse, but you amuse her." 

Gary groaned and set his head back on his pillow. "This is mental. I've cracked. That's what happened."

"Do you really think you have?"

He thought back to the geese, to the anger in that Miranda's eyes. "No," he croaked out finally. "I really do not."

"Look, Preston…" Lucifer said, and his voice was surprisingly gentle. It was the first time he'd spoken to Gary without the edge of sardonicism scraping through. Not exactly how Gary thought Satan would be. At all. "Let me set out a few things here. First, I'm rather good with papers and contacts. As far as the hospitalist is concerned and the money people, we're siblings and I'm covering everything. You'd be surprised how fast a bill collector shuts up when paid over 130% of the bill in cash."

"Blimey."

"Exactly."

Gary sighed and rubbed at his temples. "Does this mean I owe you? Do I get possessed? Become a minion? How does this work exactly?"

Lucifer laughed. "No, I _owed_ you since I'm the reason you got shot. I like to square my accounts. All of your recovery and whatever must be procured for that is to be covered by me, and I view that as an even exchange. Second, I banned possession a millennium ago. It got messy, and Michael had a right shouting fit with me, sword involved. Not worth it."

"Michael." Gary frowned. He went to church at best around twice a year. He'd done Sunday school as a kid till he was confirmed at twelve, but the most regularly he'd gone was over twenty-two years ago. He was so out of his depth. "Like an angel too, right?"

Lucifer's eyes were red for a moment, and it freaked Gary out to know that wasn't just a trick of an overtired mind late at Lux. The Devil was here, with his face, and flashing red eyes at him. "I am not one. Fallen and all that, but, yes, one of the Archangels and my twin."

Gary snorted. "Do you look like everyone?"

"No, only set of twins Dad ever made. I like to think of it as one of Dad's endless jokes on me. But no possession, no slave contracts-I'm extremely pro-free will-and no demonic destiny for you."

"Then, why…well anything?"

"I am helping you because you should never have suffered due to my baggage and enemies. That was beyond the pale." 

Gary shook his head and gestured between them. "I mean, why the doppelganger gag? If you're really just red and burned underneath…"

Lucifer's jaw clenched and his posture went rigid. Gary's heart hammered in his chest as he remembered all over again who he was close to pissing off royally. When Lucifer spoke, his voice was tight and controlled. "I look like that now. But this," he said, gesturing to his face as it was. "…is a bit of parlor magic, a glamour, so I can pass as I _was_. I dunno, maybe the universe is lazy. Maybe Dad only has so many designs. Maybe it's just more cosmic jokes leveled at my feet. I don't look like you, you happen to passably resemble me, which, I could tell you now, Preston, you could do a far sight worse." He shrugged and cracked his knuckles. "Heard a bit sometimes about doppelgangers and all that rot, caused a bit of a problem a few years back in Virginia, way I heard it, but never been my business or my care. I just like to repay debts. You rest up, get better, and feel free to return to Lux. If you want out…can't rightly blame you…then first class flight home, you'll get."

Gary shook his head and still felt like his world was spinning out before him. "So, you're not actually British?"

Lucifer shrugged. "I like it there. Spent quite a bit of time there on my various vacations. Always enjoyed the company of your writers. Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Wilde among them. It just felt natural to adapt the accent eventually. Besides, after movies were invented….well, what's a bad guy without a bit of English in him?"

Gary laughed, and he knew there was a hysterical edge to it because he had to be losing his mind. "This is mad."

"It is, but you're taking this better than any human I've met so far."

"I think I'm going to start screaming and never stop because Satan's talking to me, and, apparently, we became mates somewhere along the way. That cannot say great things about me."

"I'm far more interesting than Dad or my siblings," Lucifer sniffed.

Gary blinked. Had he hurt the feelings of the Prince of Darkness? What the fuck? "More mental," Gary corrected. "I…I think I need some time…or a decade to parse through all this."

"You won't be released for a week yet, at least, and that's good because it'll take time to set up one of the apartments on the other floors of Lux anyway. Get nurses all that. Can't release people with no support system, some AMA thing for all I know."

"Oh."

"Yes, so you rest, and I'll get it all sorted."

Gary frowned. "You feel guilty." It wasn't a question. It shouldn't have taken him this long to finally understand, but it was so obvious now. The Devil-who looked too much like him for comfort and tended to sulk after Chloe Decker like a puppy-felt guilty about the whole buggered up situation. Not that he shouldn't, just that how could the Devil feel guilty about _anything_?

Lucifer stood and scowled. "I do not. It's just tit for tat. I'm all about an even exchange. You took a bullet that might have killed me, and I help you get better, and then you can go off to apologize to your bird or you can stay here. Whatever you'd like. I can even help you get papers as good as my own-to be fair as real too-and you can get a job at a safer venue but as a real chef. I know a few Michelin star places if you're interested."

Gary laughed and this time it was genuine. "Now, you're bribing me in your guilt. I cook for bars, not exactly Gordon Ramsey." Not that he was Gary's style anyway. Too much yelling for no reason. "Boss, look, I'm going to need a minute to figure out how insane this all is, but, honestly, I'm probably going to stay once I'm better." He sighed and looked down at his hands. "Says a lot about me, doesn't it?"

"How so?"

"I made such a cock up with Miranda that I'd rather stay in Los Angeles with the Devil than try and go back and fumble another apology with her."

Lucifer frowned and ran a hand through his hair. "You shouldn't delay in that. I can't pull another save for you. I've no wings any longer and finding another Pentecostal coin could take years. Next trip you take to the great beyond, you're on your own, and that guilt is eating deeply at you."

"I can't. You don't understand. I bet you've never disappointed the woman you love. You and Chloe Decker barely know each other." Lucifer started to bristle at that, but Gary continued. "I've known Miranda for the better part of fifteen years and I tore her heart out. One day, yeah, I'll try and fix it, but I can't now because she wasn't wrong. I was ashamed about having to get bailed out in Hong Kong and dind't know how to tell her one thing without making the whole house of cards even worse." He let out a shuddering breath. "I can't fix it yet, don't know how."

Lucifer nodded. "Very well, but I would still understand if being around me and Mazikeen is too much. Humans don't take divinity well; you lot do far worse with the infernal. Doesn't do much for your sanity."

Gary couldn't argue with that. He wasn't even sure he hadn't gone mental yet. For all he knew, he was already hallucinating in an asylum somewhere. But he still felt mostly like himself, just confused as fuck and anxious.

"I'll stay at least till I'm on my feet. Then, I'll have to decide from there." He frowned. "I don't know how to fix it, boss, and that's all I wanted to do. Even when I came all the way out here, run away for kilometers and then some. I just want to fix it…"

"But you're scared."

"More scared of making Miranda break again than I ever was of demon geese."

Lucifer laughed. "About that…We get all kinds of fears in Hell, but, Preston, evil geese are a first." He chuckled till tears ran down his eyes. "You're a complicated one. I don't see many of those. I do hope you'll stick around when you're back on your feet."

"Why?"

"Because, I think it would amuse me greatly to help you win your bird back. If anyone's an expert at the fairer sex-well _all sexes really_-then it's Lucifer Bloody Morningstar." He gave a courtly bow and headed toward the door. "I think you'll really learn a lot from me. Now get some rest, you look absolutely shattered." 

Gary sighed and leaned back into his pillow. He should probably be terrified, although he had managed to escape Hell for now. He should be still screaming like a madman and about to mess his trousers, well hospital gown. But he wasn't. Nope, the only thing he could think of was that somehow, through some impossible fluke of the universe (it couldn't be God's plan, could it, and oh bollocks **GOD** was real)…he, _Gary Preston_, had just ended up with Satan himself as his "wingman."

This could not end well. Then again, it hadn't started particularly brilliantly either.


End file.
